Is the 'dead planet' full of life?

November 23, 2011
By Cristy Lytal

USC Dornsife professor Kenneth Nealson is working on an atmospheric monitor that will search for signs of life on Mars. Photo by Phil Channing.

(PhysOrg.com) -- David Bowie asked it best in his 1971 song “Life on Mars?” But when it comes to the question of whether there’s currently life on the Red Planet, USC Dornsife professor Kenneth Nealson is fairly confident that the answer is no.

“I’m highly skeptical about it,” said Nealson, his face creased by a smile, his thumbs hooked in his colorful, embroidered belt from Nicaragua.

Nealson, Wrigley Chair in Environmental Studies and professor of earth sciences and biological sciences, was addressing a group of USC students in a sunny room that serves as a kitchen, a library, an office and a conference room for his research team.

On the table, Bergey’s Manual of Systematic Bacteriology: Volume 3 shares space with a salt shaker, a bag of sunflower seeds, and jars of Nutella and peanut butter. Two signs are posted over the nearby kitchen sink - the periodic table and a warning appropriate for a planet that teems with life: “Help us become roach free: Do not leave dishes or sponges in the sink.”

Although Nealson doubts that Mars shares Earth’s pest problems, skepticism has not stopped him from serving as a member on one of the instrument teams for the Mars Science Laboratory, the space probe due to launch Nov. 26 that will travel for more than eight months before landing on Mars’ Gale Crater, where water once may have flowed.

He’s working on an atmospheric monitor that will search for signs of life mainly in the form of light methane, an isotope or variant of the element, which usually is produced by bacteria on Earth.

Nealson knows a thing or two about life and has spent decades studying it in its simplest forms. A maverick by nature, he has engaged in research that includes the exploration of bacteria’s chemical communication methods and the creation of bacteria-fueled batteries.

In his view, the reason that Earth swarms with life and Mars deserves to be called “the dead planet” has a lot to do with a single element: nitrogen.

While Earth’s atmosphere consists of nearly 80 percent nitrogen, Mars has only trace amounts. Smaller than Earth, Mars has only a third of our planet’s gravity. As a result, according to the speculation of many scientists, Mars did not have the necessary gravitational pull to hang on to most of its atmosphere. What remains is only a few thousandths of the density of ours.

A key component of all known living organisms, nitrogen occurs in amino acids, proteins and nucleic acids, including DNA.

“Nitrogen is a compound that has both single and double bonds and is very good at transferring electrons around, and none of us can figure out how you can do this without nitrogen,” Nealson said.

Without electron transfer, the basis of respiration, cells can’t get the energy that is necessary for life from nutrients, he added.

Although nitrogen provides a key ingredient for life on Earth, Nealson believes that other elements could substitute in the recipe for life on Mars. As a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the late 1990s, he hunted for telltale signs of life in the Red Planet’s atmosphere. Instead of searching for a particular chemical, such as nitrogen, his team took a more broad-minded approach and looked for anything that was present in a larger quantity than expected.

Nearly everything in Earth’s atmosphere is out of equilibrium by “at least a factor of a million,” Nealson said. If not for life, Earth’s atmosphere would comprise only a few parts per billion of oxygen rather than 20 percent. In addition, it also would not include what he called “weird molecules” like hormones and pheromones.

Life is messy; Mars is neat. Everything in its atmosphere appears to be exactly as it should be in accordance with planetary science, suggesting that neither little green plants nor little green men are releasing their dynamic hodgepodge of chemical byproducts into the rarefied Martian air.

Nealson puts the dead planet scenario in even simpler terms, comparing Mars to a sterilized, bacteria-free can of soup.

“There’s no reaction going on [in the soup] because you sterilized it,” he said. “These chemicals just will not break down without life there. And without any life around, they’re stable forever.”

Nealson’s boyish blue eyes twinkle as he casually redefines life for everybody in the room.

Nobel Prize winner George Olah and Surya Prakash of USC Dornsife have found new traction in their methanol economy concept with their latest publication, the Open Fuel Standard Act of 2011 and the new discoveries of shale ...

Australians have been working hard to cut down their household’s daily water consumption, however a new study in the latest edition of Building Research & Information reveals that clothing, food and electricity are ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- Colorado State University researchers have discovered an enzyme that is critical to the survival and replication of the bacterial pathogen that causes tuberculosis. The enzyme may become a key target for ...

Recommended for you

What if I told you that recent experiments have revealed a revolutionary new method of propulsion that threatens to overthrow the laws of physics as we know them? That its inventor claims it could allow us to travel to the ...

The coalescence of two black holes—a very violent and exotic event—is one of the most sought-after observations of modern astronomy. But, as these mergers emit no light of any kind, finding such elusive events has been ...

The recent discovery of an Earth twin has boosted chances there is intelligent life on other planets. But while Pope Francis's telescope scans the starlit skies, the Vatican is sceptical of ever meeting Mr. Spock.

A dying star's final moments are captured in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The death throes of this star may only last mere moments on a cosmological timescale, but this star's demise is still quite ...

Sounds like someone has his feet firmly planted on rock solid ground. I like his no nonsense approach to looking for signs of life. All indications are that there is no life on mars, except that which might have been carried from here to there.

As a photo analyst for MARS(Mars Anomaly Research Society) I have found that Mars is a fully inhabited Planet. Read the paper published by Andrew D. Basiago on 12/12/08 entitled " The Discovery of Life on Mars". Again, I do not 'think' that Mars is inhabited. I know it is inhabited. Also, we are getting there via 'Jump Room' and there are a least 500,000 of us there. Lewis "In the case of the jump rooms to Mars, which establish that the US has time travel technology and is sending people to Mars with it, we now have five whistle blowers: Michael Relfe, Andrew D. Basiago, Arthur Neumann, William B. Stillings, and Laura M. Eisenhower." -- Andrew D. Basiago

As a photo analyst for MARS (Matrix Advanced Reality Simulation) I have found that Earth is a fully inhabited simulation. Read the paper published by Andrew D. Basiago on 12/12/08 entitled " The Simulation of Life on Earth". Again, I do not 'think' that Earth is simulated. I know it is simulated. Also, we are getting there via 'the matrix' and there are a least 500,000 of us plugged in. Lewis "In the case of the matrix, which establishes that the machines have virtual reality technology and are using people as batteries with it, we now have five whistle blowers: Morphius, Neo, Trinity, The Oracle, and Agent Smith." -- Andrew D. Basiago

I fixed it for you. No thanks necessary. Be strong my brother and don't give up the Zion mainframe codes.

So does that mean Venus and Jupiter are more likely planets for finding life, since they are quite fast and have lots of chemical reactions going on. Or is life on Mars if it exists just really slow.

I actually kind of agree with you. There's probably no reason a different type of life form can't be found on Venus or Jupiter. Oh, you forgot to also mention Titan - another place with a lot of chemical reactions.

As a photo analyst for MARS(Mars Anomaly Research Society) I have found that Mars is a fully inhabited Planet. Read the paper published by Andrew D. Basiago on 12/12/08 entitled " The Discovery of Life on Mars". Again, I do not 'think' that Mars is inhabited. I know it is inhabited. Also, we are getting there via 'Jump Room' and there are a least 500,000 of us there. Lewis "In the case of the jump rooms to Mars, which establish that the US has time travel technology and is sending people to Mars with it, we now have five whistle blowers: Michael Relfe, Andrew D. Basiago, Arthur Neumann, William B. Stillings, and Laura M. Eisenhower." -- Andrew D. Basiago

I can just see those wacky martian teenagers, snapping pics of themselves riding around on the mars rovers we sent them, building giant portraits in the sand, eating locally grown indigeonous produce that has been artificially increased in size by a friendly little dude with a gold helmet and a black face and his ray gun who has a terrible hate on for 6ft tall rabbits with opposable thumbs. Mars rules!

Please sign in to add a comment.
Registration is free, and takes less than a minute.
Read more

Click here to reset your password.
Sign in to get notified via email when new comments are made.